My wife is under the weather; she's fine but she's in the basement away from us and I've been on solo parenting duty with the kids this week so I'm behind. You ever been there? Behind on Slack, email, writing a newsletter, making some videos I wanted to make ... but that's life. And one of the fortunate things about being able to work for myself is when life gets in the way I can push things to the side vs. that feeling of your boss breathing down your neck ... whoa how did we get here? Anyway, I wanted to send something out so I hope at least you're reading now .. it's 8:15 PM everyone is sleeping except for my daughter I can hear her feet tapping upstairs .. she's "sleeping" yeah..

I am messing around with TikTok as a way to drive eyeballs for Exit Five. Can you help me spread the word and follow this account and like/comment on posts? I am going to have some fun and you can see along the way.

Marketing thought this week: How to do B2B creative that doesn't suck.

Your website should be on brand, sure.

But I never understand why B2B brands pump out creative for ads in places here like the LinkedIn feed and make the ads look so on brand.

9/10 ads I see in this feed LOOK LIKE ADS and therefore will get ignored.

When you are putting creative out into other channels outside of your website you must understand the context.

Is your dream customer going to stop scrolling and read the copy on your perfectly on-brand creative? Or are they going to miss it completely because of our tendency to tune out things that looks like ads …

The website and overall brand should have a clear look + feel + “branding” but if the goal is to start conversations with potential customers in busy channels like social media, I want something that actually gets their attention.

Have you listened to the Exit Five podcast???

I know there are a lot of podcasts out there but if you're looking for something consistently useful and not stuffy, give the Exit Five podcast a listen. It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you get your podcasts.

This week's guest is Peep Laja (Wynter Founder) and we've put out new episodes every week for the last 10 weeks and we're doing new talk show style interviews that you are going to love. I am going to bring on two guests each week - guests who are doing the work right now in B2B marketing. I am taking a break from the CMO story interviews and getting into the weeds because that's what people want. 

Last week I recorded the first episode with Kaylee Edmondson (Director of Demand Gen at Brightwheel) and Amanda Natividad (VP of Marketing at Sparktoro). That one is up next.

*if you read that last section and that excites you, reply and let me know. that means you 1) listen to the podcast today and 2) are validating my change here

Psst. Looking for a new job? Browse 69 open roles right now on the Exit Five job board.  Did you know we have that? You can also post jobs for free; they stay up there 30 days and reach thousands of B2B marketers you could be hiring.